America's Most Reputable Companies

Jacquelyn Smith
,
Forbes Staff
If it has to do with leadership, jobs, or careers, I'm on it.

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Amazon took the No. 3 spot this year. The Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth earned a pulse score of 79.95—up 1.31 points from 2012, when it ranked 5th.

“Consumers seem to be rewarding Amazon for their exceptional customer focus,” Johndrow says. “The emotional connection [consumer have with the company] has remained high after making a leap in 2011 when it was the No. 1 most reputable company in the U.S.”

Amazon ranked among the top 5 in two of the seven dimensions. “Unsurprisingly, compared with peers, Amazon performs exceptionally well in innovation (No.2) and products (No. 1),” he says. The company also scores high, compared with the industry average, in governance, leadership and performance.

“This well-rounded strength in dimensions of reputation is necessary to sustain strong connections over time,” Johndrow adds. “A reputation built on service alone would not be enough.”

Deere & Co. and Dean Foods also joined the ranks of the top 10 this year, after building progressive gains since 2011. The four to fall off: No. 13 Procter & Gamble, No. 14 Kellogg’s, No. 24 Apple, and No. 35 PepsiCo. “Most of these are consumer packaged goods companies that traditionally do well,” Johndrow notes.

Overall, the transport and logistics, consumer products, industrial products, food manufacturing, and computer industries scored highest. At the other end of the spectrum, energy, telecommunications, banking firms and diversified financial companies earned the weakest scores.

"Not surprisingly, the majority of the bottom ranking companies are financial services firms--the likes of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, AIG and Goldman Sachs,” Johndrow says. Of the 30 companies that fall into this category, 19 rank in the bottom 50; 10 rank between 50 and 100; and only one, Berkshire Hathaway, ranks in the top 50.

The least reputable company on the list this year: Halliburton. In dead last, the oilfield services firm earned a pulse score of 32.01, which is 5.61 points less than last year.

Fannie Mae’s score increased by 6.14 points, while Freddie Mac was up a whopping 11.35 points. Others in the sector to see increases this year: Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup.

In 2012 AIG was the biggest gainer, when its score grew by about 16 points thanks to tangible progress on shifting perceptions of its ethics and transparency. But things went downhill again this year. As the fourth least reputable company in 2013, AIG’s score dropped 10.75 points to 39.17.

“Building a strong reputation takes time,” Johndrow says. “To earn trust and respect you need to consistently show that you will live up to your promises. To build a strong reputation companies need to deliver on these expectations through everyday work. But this is proving to be more and more difficult.”

Reputation management is a discipline that must be built into the way a company operates. “A great way to start is to bring consumers and other stakeholders ‘into the room’ with you when you make business decisions," he concludes. "This is a mindset shift that can be helped by using analytical tools to connect stakeholder perceptions to business results.”

Earlier this month Reputation Institute ranked the world's most reputable companies. Forbes reported on that here.